No power, no internet.
What’s a girl to do?
Well, I could work with my horses. Yup, it’s a blast trudging through a foot of snow, trying to work them in a few circles before it gets dark.
OR, after the chores are all done, I could tuck myself into the couch with a headlamp and a good book.
Books are like movies. The minute someone gushes,
“you will just love this!” I'm convinced I will hate it. So what makes me think you, Dear Reader, will enjoy the books I hold dear? Maybe dumb luck. Or perhaps our mutual love and appreciation for those sweet hay burners out there in our barns!
So against my better judgment, I offer a few of my favorites. Sure, I read non-horse books. But you can’t smell the barn in them. Read these below and you certainly will!
[Feel free to submit your suggestions via the comment option on the top of the page.]
Winner of the National Book Award
The author worked at small-time racetracks and has captured lovely, quiet elements of the horse world.
Here, Gordan gives voice to a character named Medicine Ed, an elderly black groom at the fictional Indian Mound track in West Virginia.
Medicine Ed says, when he muses about bandaging techniques:
“Horseracing is not no science. Some of em tries to make it a science, with the drugs and the chemicals and that, but ma’
fact it’s more like a religion. It’s a clouded thing. You can’t see through it. It come down to a person’s beliefs. One person believe this and the other person believe that. It’s like the National Baptists bandage and the Southern Baptists use liniment, you see what I’m trying to say? Nobody exactly know.”
Ain’t that the truth?
My favorite chapters are about Seabiscuit’s trainer, Tom Smith, and his keen observations and unconventional methods. He was a horse whisperer before they even coined that term.
Spragg is to writing what quiet cowboys are to horsemanship. His writing is strong and sparse, tough and sensitive. Nothing flowery here. Spragg writes about working on his father’s ranch and learning about horses from the ground up. Incredible anecdotes of backcountry experiences.
Another memoir. Plenty of painful lessons – on both the human and horsemanship fronts. He may not
write as well as Spragg, but the anecdotes are equally endearing. This is a wonderful book for reading about the evolution and learning process of a horse trainer.
I am just starting to read this one. There is a chapter on horses. But really, any book with a fresh perspective on the connections between animals and humans is worth a look.
Grandin is autistic. And after reading “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”
by Mark Haddon (Told you I read non-horse books!) I realized how our interpretations of animal welfare can be narrowed by so many factors: our background, our brain functions, our educations, etc.